The question in the title of this post is one that I’ve been asked lots of times in different factual contexts. The basic question is, given that most people have cell phones, and that people tend to use their phones to document and to communicate about just about everything that they do, is it reasonable to believe that a person who has committed a crime has evidence of that crime on his or her phone?
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Real-Time Cell Phone Tracking Update, Including a New Case
The Court of Appeals of North Carolina recently decided a case about police obtaining real-time location information from a suspect’s cellular service provider. The case does not address the principal controversy concerning such information. Nonetheless, it provides a good refresher on the issue and marks a good time for an update on the national controversy about this issue.
News Roundup
On Tuesday, a 15-year-old high schooler with a handgun killed two fellow students and wounded sixteen others in Kentucky. According to NBC News, the shooter opened fire in a common area of Marshall County High School just before 8:00 a.m., sending the school into chaos as students desperately fled the attack. Police officers arrived at the school minutes later, quickly disarming the shooter and taking him into custody. Bailey Nicole Holt died at the scene and Preston Ryan Cope died later at a hospital. Keep reading for more news.
Felony Deferrals in District Court
Can a district court judge enter a deferred prosecution order or conditional discharge for a defendant charged with a felony?
New Developments Regarding Risk Assessments
Risk assessment tools are starting to take root in the criminal justice system. They’re used to make decisions about pretrial release, sentencing, and the level of supervision or custody to which a defendant will be subject. Some of the results are encouraging. For example, Mecklenburg County uses a risk assessment developed by the Laura and John Arnold Foundation to help make pretrial release decisions. The pretrial services office there reports that the risk assessment has contributed to “transformational change” in how pretrial justice is administered, with fewer secured bonds being imposed the jail population falling with no harm to public safety. Based in part on Mecklenburg’s success, the North Carolina Commission on the Administration of Law and Justice encouraged the creation of a pilot project that would “implement and assess more broadly . . . an empirically derived pretrial risk assessment tool.”
News Roundup
A disturbing case of child abuse has received widespread national news coverage this week. As the L.A. Times reports, David and Louise Turpin of Perris, California, were charged with multiple felony counts of torture and child abuse after it was discovered that the couple had held their thirteen children captive for years and subjected them to unimaginable mistreatment. On Sunday, one of the children escaped the family home through a window and called 911, alerting authorities that she and her siblings had been beaten, starved, shackled, and forced to live in unsanitary conditions. Bail has been set at $12 million for each defendant. Keep reading for more news.
Releasing Inmates to Other Countries
North Carolina law allows certain inmates to be released from incarceration to return to another country.
Court of Appeals Reconsiders State v. Reed and Again Finds a Fourth Amendment Violation
The court of appeals decided another significant Rodriguez case yesterday, ruling (again) in State v. Reed that the highway patrol trooper who stopped the defendant for speeding on Interstate 95 detained the defendant for longer than necessary to carry out the mission of the stop without reasonable suspicion of other criminal activity.
New Practice Guide: Defense Motions and Notices in Superior Court
I’m happy to announce my first indigent defense practice guide, Defense Motions and Notices in Superior Court. As the title implies, it’s a court-ready guide for practitioners about common defense motions in superior court criminal cases at the trial level. While it is primarily written with non-capital felony cases in mind, the information will hopefully be useful to all criminal defense attorneys.
News Roundup
The Durham Herald Sun reported this week that felony charges against eight people allegedly involved in destroying a Confederate monument in downtown Durham last summer have been dismissed. The criminal cases are not over though, the Herald Sun report says that those charged in the incident will be tried on misdemeanors including injury to personal property, injury to real property, and defacing or injuring a public monument. Apparently, a great deal of public interest in these cases remains, the report says that the courtroom was overloaded with spectators such that some defendants who were in court for unrelated cases couldn’t find a seat. Keep reading for more news.